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Saturday, August 29, 2009

A post by Joe Quirk in the San Francisco Chronicle had me chortling while checking my office to make sure there weren’t hidden cameras. Quirk writes about an infestation at Penguin Publishers that caused them to evacuate their offices. The infestation? Bedbugs.

Why? According to Quirk:

This plague was brought by the feminine deities, the Greek Muses, who have cast a pox upon their hides as punishment for their persecution of the Muses' chosen people: poets and writers.

Lots of people are concerned about the infestation, but apparently not for the health of the staff.

When a professional entomologist assured everyone that bed bugs won't damage the literature-- it's only the skins of publishers and staff that will develop wheals and pus-filled boils-- everybody drew a city-wide sigh of relief.

What had me checking for hidden cameras that might catch me laughing was this line:

When a professional was quoted as saying, "It sounds like it'll be a detailed crack-and-crevice treatment," I almost snapped on my latex gloves and called to volunteer, until I realized they weren't talking about publishers and publicists, but base molding, the second item on the list of concerns.

The thought of a bedbug infestation gives me the shivers, so I feel sorry for the people involved, but I am also glad the books are safe. And glad I’m not a book reviewer who received a Penquin book in the mail and didn’t know not to open it.

17 comments:

Hahahaaa! Too funny - well, sort of. I'm glad bedbugs are not book bedfellows, too. Pity the peeps, though. Reminds me of back in the day travelling in a R&R band on a shoestring budget. We had to stay in seedy motels and I caught the crabs from a bed I slept in. Yeeeack! Wouldn't wish that on anyone. Well, mebbe ... no, not anyone.

Having once experienced an infestation of bedbugs I feel for these people! It's not a nice thing at all.

Of course now I know the meaning of the old saying "don't let the bedbugs bite, and if they do, take a shoe, and smash their heads in two". To think as a kid I thought bedbugs was something the adults made up to freak kids up.

And I gather that bedbugs have made a huge resurgence, and once you get an infestation, you have to throw away all kinds of stuff and fumigate your entire house! Yuck! Thankfully they don't seem to be as big an issue on the West Coast.

Got quite a laugh at the thought of you volunteering for "crack checking". LOL

But on a serious note, bed bugs are becoming more and more of a problem. One hardly heard of them outside some slum apartment building or a shack on a mountain somewhere, but now high class hotels have them. Never thought they would invade a publishing company.

Angel Sometimes by Helen Ginger

Angel Sometimes

Helen Ginger

Helen is the author of five books: three non-fiction, a short story anthology and a contemporary fiction, Angel Sometimes. She maintains an informational and interactive blog for writers and a weekly e-newsletter that has been going out to subscribers around the globe for thirteen years. She is an owner-partner and Women’s Marketing Director for Legends In Our Own Minds®, which specializes in creative networking opportunities for companies and groups.